CSBG Archive

The Comic Book Fools of April – Milk and Cheese #666

Every day in April I will be featuring a humorous comic (either an issue or a series of strips) that I found particularly amusing. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com the comic stories that are your favorites when it comes to hilarity, and I’ll see if I can’t feature some of them this month, as well!

Today we look at Evan Dorkin’s award-winning Milk and Cheese #666!

The concept of Milk and Cheese is that they are, in fact, anthropomorphic milk and cheese, only they are dairy products “gone bad.” Only, of course, instead of just stinking up the joint, Milk and Cheese have gone bad by becoming sadistic jerks.

However, they’re humorous sadistic jerks!

Really, it is a testament to Evan Dorkin’s skills as a comic book creator that he has managed to take a fairly one-note concept (“Milk and Cheese commit some violent act”) and somehow keep it fresh and clever for so long.

In the sixth issue of Milk and Cheese (titled Milk and Cheese Six Six Six), the pair celebrate their anniversary…

This was a nice riff on the idea of getting mixed signals…

“Norman Fell commands it!” Hilarious (I also like the mocking of the Three’s Company plot point about Jack pretending to be gay).

In this next bit, the pair decide to hunt down semi-famous celebrities…

It all comes back to random violence with Milk and Cheese.

Speaking of violence, there’s a disturbing bit in the book about their violence detached from their wide-eyed enjoyment of it all. Dorkin’s depiction of them as blank-faced terrors was, as I noted, very disturbing.

There is a fun extended riff about the guys getting Darth Vader helmets (here’s the third page of it)…

Finally, are Milk and Cheese at fault?!

Dorkin is such a skilled cartoonist. I know this comic is not for everybody, but it is because of Dorkin’s greatness that this comic is for ANYbody! This could easily be some awful comics right here, but Dorkin walks the fine line between funny and “just pointless violence” and makes it work.

Around the time of the Star Wars relaunches, there was a mincomic extending “Darth Vader Overdrive.” Great stuff, including a “behinds the scenes” bit, including the “boys” dressed as furry Ewoks. Says one, “If you think these costumes look shitty, you should see the cats we got them from.” Or something to that effect. Good stuff.